Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Saturday 3/24:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Monday 3/26: Stellar comics and game nerds Anthony Atamanuik, Josh Gondelman, Alison Leiby, Mitra Jouhari, Ziwe Fumudoh, Mike Brown, and Dan Ryckert play and make merciless fun of some of the worst video games of all time (e.g., Shaq-Fu) hosted by Mike Drucker (hilarious stand-up and staff writer for The President Show; previously wrote for Jimmy Fallon, SNL, Bill Nye Saves the World, The Onion, McSweeney’s): Shit Arcade (9:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Monday 3/26: Elizabeth Marvel (President Elizabeth Keane on Showtime’s Homeland, Solicitor General Heather Dunbar on Netflix’s House of Cards, Detective Nancy Parras on The District) is the guest of this NPR comedy trivia show taped live in Brooklyn and hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Ask Me Another(7:30 pm, $25, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Tuesday 3/27: UK comic James Acaster is famed for the delightful one-hour solo comedy shows he’s developed over the years for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Today Netflix releases filmed versions of the four productions, titled Recognize, Represent, Reset, and Recap, packaged under the umbrella titled of Repertoire. Stream and enjoy: James Acaster: Repertoire

Tuesday 3/27:Mike Birbiglia (writer/director/star of feature films Don’t Think Twice and Sleepwalk with Me; actor in numerous films and TV shows, including Trainwreck, Inside Amy Schumer, and Orange is the New Black; multiple appearances on David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel,etc.; three Comedy Central specials; comedy CDs Two Drink Mike and My Secret Public Journal—Live), Hari Kondabolu (David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Comedy Central Presents, @midnight; former writer & correspondent for FX’s Totally Biased), Cipha Sounds (Chappelle’s Show, MTV, Hot 97), Eudora Peterson (Jezebel, Huffington Post), and more perform stand-up for this show by The Comedy Resistance, “a nonprofit headlined by comedians, run by professionals with decades of experience in talent and campaign management, and fueled by anyone who wants to make an impact in our country by getting out the vote and boosting activism. Laugh, learn, and resist:” An Evening with The Comedy Resistance: Mike Birbiglia, Hari Kondabolu, and More (7:30 pm, $40, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Saturday 3/31:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Josh Gondelman (Emmy & Peabody Award-winning writer/producer for HBO’s phenom Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Conan O’Brien, The New Yorker; stand-up comedy album Physical Whisper), Abbi Crutchfield (Broad City, MTV, VH1, Witstream), and Mamoudou N’Diaye (MTV’s Decoded) perform stand-up for this show that each month raises funds for a different worthy cause—this time it’s The Ali Forney Center—hosted by Mike Brown & Sam Grittner: The Feel Good Show (7:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

Contact Hy

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible Best New York Comedy (and HyReviews.com). He is literally the only person in NYC providing daily summaries of what’s happening comedy-wise. It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

Sunday 3/18:Zhubin Parang (writer for The Daily Show; UCB Saturday night improv group What I Did For Love) and Jo Firestone (one of the most relentlessly inventive comics in the biz; staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; star of Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special; HBO’s Crashing, Comedy Central’s Broad City; radio host of WFMU’s Dr. Gameshow, live-on-stage host of The Unexpectashow and co-host of Butterball, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers) demonstrate their quick wits by hilariously answering questions about what a guest scientist’s job entails at this live taping of Chris Duffy’s excellent podcast: You’re the Expert (7:00 pm, $16.89 in advance online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Saturday 3/24:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Monday 3/26: Stellar comics and game nerds Anthony Atamanuik, Josh Gondelman, Alison Leiby, Mitra Jouhari, Ziwe Fumudoh, Mike Brown, and Dan Ryckert play and make merciless fun of some of the worst video games of all time (e.g., Shaq-Fu) hosted by Mike Drucker (hilarious stand-up and staff writer for The President Show; previously wrote for Jimmy Fallon, SNL, Bill Nye Saves the World, The Onion, McSweeney’s): Shit Arcade (9:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Monday 3/26: Elizabeth Marvel (President Elizabeth Keane on Showtime’s Homeland, Solicitor General Heather Dunbar on Netflix’s House of Cards, Detective Nancy Parras on The District) is the guest of this NPR comedy trivia show taped live in Brooklyn and hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Ask Me Another(7:30 pm, $25, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Tuesday 3/27: UK comic James Acaster is famed for the delightful one-hour solo comedy shows he’s developed over the years for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Today Netflix releases filmed versions of the four productions, titled Recognize, Represent, Reset, and Recap, packaged under the umbrella titled of Repertoire. Stream and enjoy: James Acaster: Repertoire

Tuesday 3/27:Mike Birbiglia (writer/director/star of feature films Don’t Think Twice and Sleepwalk with Me; actor in numerous films and TV shows, including Trainwreck, Inside Amy Schumer, and Orange is the New Black; multiple appearances on David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel,etc.; three Comedy Central specials; comedy CDs Two Drink Mike and My Secret Public Journal—Live), Hari Kondabolu (David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Comedy Central Presents, @midnight; former writer & correspondent for FX’s Totally Biased), Cipha Sounds (Chappelle’s Show, MTV, Hot 97), Eudora Peterson (Jezebel, Huffington Post), and more perform stand-up for this show by The Comedy Resistance, “a nonprofit headlined by comedians, run by professionals with decades of experience in talent and campaign management, and fueled by anyone who wants to make an impact in our country by getting out the vote and boosting activism. Laugh, learn, and resist:” An Evening with The Comedy Resistance: Mike Birbiglia, Hari Kondabolu, and More (7:30 pm, $40, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Saturday 3/31:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Josh Gondelman (Emmy & Peabody Award-winning writer/producer for HBO’s phenom Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Conan O’Brien, The New Yorker; stand-up comedy album Physical Whisper), Abbi Crutchfield (Broad City, MTV, VH1, Witstream), and Mamoudou N’Diaye (MTV’s Decoded) perform stand-up for this show that each month raises funds for a different worthy cause—this time it’s The Ali Forney Center—hosted by Mike Brown & Sam Grittner: The Feel Good Show (7:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

Contact Hy

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible Best New York Comedy (and HyReviews.com). He is literally the only person in NYC providing daily summaries of what’s happening comedy-wise. It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

David Carl (hilarious, charismatic co-star of Point Break Live) is best known for his solo show Gary Busey’s One Man Hamlet (As Performed by David Carl), which nabbed raves and awards during its debut in the 2014 FringeNYC Festival and subsequent international tour (for my review, please click here). Three years later, David and his director Michole Biancosino have created this second solo show as a sort of meta-sequel…and also as an examination of the inner turmoil Donald Trump’s success creates for struggling artists who live to discover and share truths. For my full description & review of this production, please click here. Running every Saturday at 2:00 pm through April 28th, this is a show worth experiencing: Trump Lear (2:00 pm; $20—which includes free brownies baked by the multi-talented writer/performer himself; Under St. Marks at 94 St. Marks Place, off First Avenue)

Saturday 3/17: In this unique show, animators spontaneously bring the jokes of guest stand-ups to visual life with lightning speed & wit. Part of the fun is that the comics don’t know what the animators will draw and the animators don’t know how the comics will react. Tonight’s stand-up & character lineup consists of Mike Drucker, Brett Davis, Alison Leiby, Nore Davis, and Madison Shepard, with animators including Bryan Brinkman and Dan Pinto, produced by Sam Varela & Brandie Posey and hosted by Ian Fidance: Picture This!(8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Sunday 3/18:Zhubin Parang (writer for The Daily Show; UCB Saturday night improv group What I Did For Love) and Jo Firestone (one of the most relentlessly inventive comics in the biz; staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; star of Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special; HBO’s Crashing, Comedy Central’s Broad City; radio host of WFMU’s Dr. Gameshow, live-on-stage host of The Unexpectashow and co-host of Butterball, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers)demonstrate their quick wits by hilariously answering questions about what a guest scientist’s job entails at this live taping of Chris Duffy’s excellent podcast: You’re the Expert (7:00 pm, $15 in advance online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Saturday 3/24:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Monday 3/26: Stellar comics and game nerds Anthony Atamanuik, Josh Gondelman, Alison Leiby, Mitra Jouhari, Ziwe Fumudoh, Mike Brown, and Dan Ryckert play and make merciless fun of some of the worst video games of all time (e.g., Shaq-Fu) hosted by Mike Drucker (hilarious stand-up and staff writer for The President Show; previously wrote for Jimmy Fallon, SNL, Bill Nye Saves the World, The Onion, McSweeney’s): Shit Arcade (9:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Monday 3/26: Elizabeth Marvel (President Elizabeth Keane on Showtime’s Homeland, Solicitor General Heather Dunbar on Netflix’s House of Cards, Detective Nancy Parras on The District) is the guest of this NPR comedy trivia show taped live in Brooklyn and hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Ask Me Another(7:30 pm, $25, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Saturday 3/31:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Josh Gondelman (Emmy & Peabody Award-winning writer/producer for HBO’s phenom Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Conan O’Brien, The New Yorker; stand-up comedy album Physical Whisper), Abbi Crutchfield (Broad City, MTV, VH1, Witstream), and Mamoudou N’Diaye (MTV’s Decoded) perform stand-up for this show that each month raises funds for a different worthy cause—this time it’s The Ali Forney Center—hosted by Mike Brown & Sam Grittner: The Feel Good Show (7:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

Contact Hy

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible Best New York Comedy (and HyReviews.com). He is literally the only person in NYC providing daily summaries of what’s happening comedy-wise. It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

Saturday 3/17: In this unique show, animators spontaneously bring the jokes of guest stand-ups to visual life with lightning speed & wit. Part of the fun is that the comics don’t know what the animators will draw and the animators don’t know how the comics will react. Tonight’s stand-up & character lineup consists of Brett Davis, Mike Drucker, Alison Leiby, Nore Davis, and Madison Shepard, with animators including Bryan Brinkman and Dan Pinto, produced by Sam Varela & Brandie Posey and hosted by Ian Fidance: Picture This!(8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Sunday 3/18:Zhubin Parang (writer for The Daily Show; UCB Saturday night improv group What I Did For Love) and Jo Firestone (one of the most relentlessly inventive comics in the biz; staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; star of Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special; HBO’s Crashing, Comedy Central’s Broad City; radio host of WFMU’s Dr. Gameshow, live-on-stage host of The Unexpectashow and co-host of Butterball, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers)demonstrate their quick wits by hilariously answering questions about what a guest scientist’s job entails at this live taping of Chris Duffy’s excellent podcast: You’re the Expert (7:00 pm, $15 in advance online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Saturday 3/24:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible Best New York Comedy (and HyReviews.com). He is literally the only person in NYC providing daily summaries of what’s happening comedy-wise. It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive.It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

Thursday 3/15: Jean Grae & John Hodgman have written topics on a carnival wheel. In this show they spin the wheel and then chat about whatever subject they land on, along with a surprise guest. What else do you need to know?: Jean and John(8:00 pm, $15, The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Thursday 3/15: Highly talented hip-hop improv group North Coast attempts to create a Hamilton on the spot by making up a musical based on an audience suggestion of a famous historical figure: Anybody: An Improvised Historical Hip-Hopera (7:30 pm, $16.89 online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street; see also Friday’s North Coast show)

Saturday 3/17: In this unique show, animators spontaneously bring the jokes of guest stand-ups to visual life with lightning speed & wit. Part of the fun is that the comics don’t know what the animators will draw and the animators don’t know how the comics will react. Tonight’s stand-up & character lineup consists of Brett Davis, Mike Drucker, Alison Leiby, Nore Davis, and Madison Shepard, with animators including Bryan Brinkman and Dan Pinto, produced by Sam Varela & Brandie Posey and hosted by Ian Fidance: Picture This!(8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Sunday 3/18:Zhubin Parang (writer for The Daily Show; UCB Saturday night improv group What I Did For Love) and Jo Firestone (one of the most relentlessly inventive comics in the biz; staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; star of Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special; HBO’s Crashing, Comedy Central’s Broad City; radio host of WFMU’s Dr. Gameshow, live-on-stage host of The Unexpectashow and co-host of Butterball, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers)demonstrate their quick wits by hilariously answering questions about what a guest scientist’s job entails at this live taping of Chris Duffy’s excellent podcast: You’re the Expert (7:00 pm, $15 in advance online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Saturday 3/24:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible BestNewYorkComedy.com…It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Please feel encouraged to reach out to tell me about comedy shows, submit material to my short story anthology Ghosts on Drugs, or for any other reason by emailing me at hy@hyreviews.com.

Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

Wednesday 3/14: UCB comics try to impress while pretending to be too cool to care at the first of two sketch & variety comedy shows for industry (agents, producers, casting directors, etc.) featuring the luminous and delightful Carly Ann Filbin (above), Sarah Smallwood Parsons, the cast of Better Jeopardy, and much more hosted by Will Martinez: UCBT’s I’m Cool Showcase (7:30 pm, $9, UCB Hell’s Kitchen at 555 West 42nd Street)

Wednesday 3/14:: “Four writers read their own work for seven minutes or less, and are then judged by four all-star judges. Two finalists are chosen to compete in the finale, a vaguely-literary game to decide the ultimate winner,” with tonight’s judges Anna Chlumsky (above; Amy Brookheimer in HBO’s Veep, for which she’s received five Emmy nominations; AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire; film My Girl), Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Jessica Valenti (author of Sex Object: A Memoir, creator of Feministing blog), and Krystyna Hutchinson (co-host of popular Guys We Fucked podcast; co-author of book F*cked: Being Sexually Explorative and Self-Confident in a World That’s Screwed)—and you—hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga: Literary Death Match (8:00 pm, $15, The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Thursday 3/15: Jean Grae & John Hodgman have written topics on a carnival wheel. In this show they spin the wheel and then chat about whatever subject they land on, along with a surprise guest. What else do you need to know?: Jean and John(8:00 pm, $15, The Bell House at 149 7th Street; take R subway to 9th Street or F/G to Fourth Avenue)

Thursday 3/15: Highly talented hip-hop improv group North Coast attempts to create a Hamilton on the spot by making up a musical based on an audience suggestion of a famous historical figure: Anybody: An Improvised Historical Hip-Hopera (7:30 pm, $16.89 online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street; see also Friday’s North Coast show)

Saturday 3/17: In this unique show, animators spontaneously bring the jokes of guest stand-ups to visual life with lightning speed & wit. Part of the fun is that the comics don’t know what the animators will draw and the animators don’t know how the comics will react. Tonight’s stand-up & character lineup consists of Brett Davis, Mike Drucker, Alison Leiby, Nore Davis, and Madison Shepard, with animators including Bryan Brinkman and Dan Pinto, produced by Sam Varela & Brandie Posey and hosted by Ian Fidance: Picture This!(8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Sunday 3/18:Zhubin Parang (writer for The Daily Show; UCB Saturday night improv group What I Did For Love) and Jo Firestone (one of the most relentlessly inventive comics in the biz; staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; star of Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special; HBO’s Crashing, Comedy Central’s Broad City; radio host of WFMU’s Dr. Gameshow, live-on-stage host of The Unexpectashow and co-host of Butterball, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers)demonstrate their quick wits by hilariously answering questions about what a guest scientist’s job entails at this live taping of Chris Duffy’s excellent podcast: You’re the Expert (7:00 pm, $15 in advance online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Saturday 3/24:Aparna Nancherla (one of the very finest stand-ups in the country; co-star of HBO’s Crashing and 2 Dope Queens, Netflix’s Master of None and The Standups, and Comedy Central’s Corporate; former writer for Seth Meyers;Conan O’Brien, @Midnight, Comedy Central Half Hour, comedy album Just Putting It Out There), Django Gold (writer for Stephen Colbert; The New Yorker, The Onion), Ziwe Fumudoh (writer for The Rundown with Robin Thede), Milly Tamarez (The Story Pirates; co-creator of the Diverse as Fuck Festival), and Eudora Peterson (visiting from New Jersey) perform stand-up hosted by Ethan Beach (MTV) & Josh Nasser (The Story Pirates): Oh, Such a Good Show, Oh (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible BestNewYorkComedy.com…It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Please feel encouraged to reach out to tell me about comedy shows, submit material to my short story anthology Ghosts on Drugs, or for any other reason by emailing me at hy@hyreviews.com.

Need a book or screenplay? Hire me. Know someone else who does? Send him or her to me, and for the first year I’ll give you a referral fee of 10% of payments received. To learn about my writing and developmental editing services, please visit BookProposal.net.

Please note that these listings are updated frequently. The best way to be instantly notified about new show postings is to subscribe to this BestNewYorkComedy.com blog and allow for email notifications. Other ways to keep up are to follow me on Twitter (@hybender) or Instagram (@hybenderny), and/or to visit the desktop version of this site at HyReviews.com.

In addition, you can use the links below to explore the schedules of all the major comedy venues in NYC; and you can find excellent live comedy recommendations weekly via The New York Times.

That said, my top NYC comedy recommendations for March 2018 (with more to come soon) include:

Tuesday 3/13: In this quick-paced show, 64 comics each perform a one-line joke for the sake of winning audience laughs and applause (for a sample from last year, please click here). This bracket-style competition will result in a single champion in just 90 minutes, hosted by Emily Winter and Larry Mancini: One Liner Madness (8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Littlefield at 635 Sackett Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Thursday 3/15: Highly talented hip-hop improv group North Coast attempts to create a Hamilton on the spot by making up a musical based on an audience suggestion of a famous historical figure: Anybody: An Improvised Historical Hip-Hopera (7:30 pm, $16.89 online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street; see also Friday’s North Coast show)

Friday 3/16: A highly talented freestyle rapping improv group that makes up scenes with fierce and joyous musical energy celebrates its Ninth Anniversary for this special show: North Coast (9:00 pm, $12, Brooklyn’s Littlefield at 635 Sackett Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Saturday 3/17: In this unique show, animators spontaneously bring the jokes of guest stand-ups to visual life with lightning speed & wit. Part of the fun is that the comics don’t know what the animators will draw and the animators don’t know how the comics will react. Tonight’s stand-up & character lineup consists of Brett Davis, Mike Drucker, Alison Leiby, Nore Davis, and Madison Shepard, with animators including Bryan Brinkman and Dan Pinto, produced by Sam Varela & Brandie Posey and hosted by Ian Fidance: Picture This!(8:00 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Sunday 3/18:Zhubin Parang (writer for The Daily Show; UCB Saturday night improv group What I Did For Love) and Jo Firestone (one of the most relentlessly inventive comics in the biz; staff writer for Jimmy Fallon; star of Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special; HBO’s Crashing, Comedy Central’s Broad City; radio host of WFMU’s Dr. Gameshow, live-on-stage host of The Unexpectashow and co-host of Butterball, co-author of #1 bestselling Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers)demonstrate their quick wits by hilariously answering questions about what a guest scientist’s job entails at this live taping of Chris Duffy’s excellent podcast: You’re the Expert (7:00 pm, $15 in advance online or $20 at the door, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

Tuesday 3/20: Comics who are parents vent by telling mean stories about their children, with tonight’s cruel jokesters Roz Chast (above top; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker; author of numerous books including Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Theories of Everything, What I Hate From A to Z, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?), Emily Flake (above bottom; genius star cartoonist for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, Forbes, etc.; author of books Mama Tried, Lulu Eightball, and These Things Ain’t Gonna Smoke Themselves), Iris Bahr (actress in numerous TV shows including Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The King of Queens, and such films as Larry the Cable Guy and The Last Exorcism), Carolyn Castiglia (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, VH1; host of Right Now; for sample of Carolyn as white rapper, please click here), and Aminah Imani (host of podcast Wine Before Nine) hosted by the wonderful Ophira Eisenberg (NBC’s The Today Show, CBS’ The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, VH1, Showtime, host of NPR’s trivia/puzzle show Ask Me Another, bestselling book Screw Everyone, comedy album Bangs!): Sh!tshow (7:30 pm, $10, Brooklyn’s Union Hall at 702 Union Street; take R subway to Union Street)

Wednesday 3/21: In this superb solo show, Mindy Raf (VH1, College Humor; author of YA novel The Symptoms of My Insanity; singer/songwriter alter ego Leibya Rogers) weaves a complex tapestry from her past relationships, anxieties, arcane bits of knowledge (e.g., she explains how the dark Web can record you while you’re masturbating), and sexual preferences (which include being bi and polyamorous) that’s thoroughly compelling. At the same time, Mindy delivers a performance so intimate and in-the-moment that it almost feels as if she’s revealing herself spontaneously. Along similar lines, when anything unexpected happens (such as an audience member snapping fingers to a background song, or another audience member getting up and crossing the stage at a delicate moment to go to the bathroom), Mindy is lightning-quick in providing a response so spot-on that it couldn’t have been better if she’d planned it. I recommend taking advantage of this brief revival of a wonderful show Mindy has previously performed Off-Broadway and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Not the One: A Love Story (7:30 pm; $20, Theaterlab at 357 West 36th Street off Ninth Avenue)

Saturday 3/24:Emma Carmichael (above left; former Editor-in-Chief of Jezebel), Ashley Brooke Roberts (above right; energetic, enormously likeable stand-up, sketch comic and actress; stellar co-host of Fresh Out and Camp; former writer for Nat Geo Explorer and MTV’s Guy Code; UCB Maude sketch groups The Prom and Absolutely),and Celisse Henderson (singer/songwriter/musician; recently performed with Ke$ha at the Grammys) sing or tell jokes, then enthusiastically endorse some product they love…which will be handed out to lucky members of the audience! Hosted by the wonderful Chris Duffy (staff writer for NatGeo Explorer, host of You’re the Expert), who makes this promise for one audience member per show: You Get A Spoon (4:00 pm, $10, LES’ Caveat at 21-A Clinton Street; take F/J/M/Z subway to Delancey Street/Essex Street)

The PIT Loft154 West 29th Street; 50-seater; the third of The PIT theatres, located separately on the West side, hosts a wide range of comedy, but is especially effective as a home for intimate solo and/or theatrical shows; free-$20

In addition, at the East Village’s UCB East you can typically find a stand-up open mic Thursdays at 6:00 pm, an improv jam Wednesdays at 11:15 pm, and a rare bring-your-own-group improv/sketch open stage Sundays at 11:00 pm. And in Chelsea, The Magnet offers an improv jam on Wednesdays at 6:00 pm, and a rare musical improv jam on Tuesdays at 6:00 pm.

All of the venues above typically provide you the stage time either for free or for $5.

There are also numerous other open mics throughout the city. For a more comprehensive list, please visit FreeMicsNYC.

From legendary NYC comedy site Brooklyn Vegan: Thank God for Hy Bender’s religiously updated show bible BestNewYorkComedy.com…It must be exhausting keeping that monster of a website alive. It is your daily comedy itinerary and it scares me how on top of his shit this guy is.

Please feel encouraged to reach out to tell me about comedy shows, submit material to my short story anthology Ghosts on Drugs, or for any other reason by emailing me at hy@hyreviews.com.